Halloween is a special time for families, Heinz’s target consumer, but it falls out of typical ketchup seasonality. As a popular family holiday, Heinz wanted to find a way to connect with families out of season on a day when imagination and creativity are encouraged. Ketchup has always played a unique role on Halloween, often standing in for fake blood in Hollywood movies and family costumes alike, so Heinz’s approach to the holiday was simple, but expansive: “If you have Heinz, you have a costume.”

Halloween is when imagination and creativity are on display for families. Ketchup has always been a stand-in for fake blood, the simplest and easiest way to make just about anything a Halloween costume. Heinz’s approach was simple: “If you have Heinz, you have a costume.” All you have is a bedsheet? Add some Heinz and now you’re a bloody ghost! Want to spice up that witch costume? Add some Heinz and it’s a bloody witch!

Heinz wanted to do more than just talk about how to create a costume, so we created a first-of-its kind Halloween costume inspiration pop-up on the Santa Monica Promenade in Los Angeles. There, consumers could find the ultimate in costume inspiration with Heinz, customizing their own costumes with Heinz splatter rooms, tutorials on spooky Heinz Ketchup makeup, or one of our Heinz DIY at-home costume kits.

Heinz has always brought families together at the dinner table, but ketchup plays a unique role on Halloween. For years ketchup has stood in for blood in both Hollywood movies and family costumes. In fact, a little fake blood is really all you need to make a good Halloween costume. Heinz saw the opportunity to embrace that role in a family- friendly way and enhance creativity and imagination for families on Halloween. Heinz’s belief on Halloween is simple: “If you have Heinz, you have a costume."

The Heinz Halloween Store in Los Angeles was open from 10/21/2021 through 10/31/2021. We took over a major piece of real estate on the famous Santa Monica Promenade (5,400 square feet) where we knew we’d get tons of foot traffic and grab attention.

Everything in The Heinz Halloween Store was dedicated to delivering one idea: “If you have Heinz, you have a costume.” We had stations where you could squirt and splatter your costumes, and a makeup artist to demonstrate how to complete your look. Or, consumers could purchase a kit to design at home. For those who couldn’t be in attendance, we brought the store to life by hosting a first-to-market shoppable livestream, broadcast simultaneously across multiple platforms. Everything in the pop-up was shareable, too, with Instagrammable photo ops throughout the space including a giant Heinz TOMATO BLOOD bottle splatter as the pop-up centerpiece.

The campaign was a huge success and achieved our goal of getting consumers to participate in #HeinzHalloween. Earned media secured 812 placements, resulting in over 600 million impressions and Ad Age calling the campaign one of the best Halloween campaigns of 2021.

We did this by creating the first-ever Heinz pop-up, the Heinz Halloween Store, which opened its doors to over 5,200 customers, allowing them to interact with Heinz Tomato Blood in person. We were the first brand to partner with Firework for a shoppable livestream, with 695,000 consumers experiencing the pop-up from home.

On social, we leaned into authentic content with influencers and our most engaged-with post featured Team2Moms giving a live tour of the activation. The post had over 71,000 engagements on TikTok.

Overall we saw a +27% increase (in October vs 2019) in ketchup sales outside of ketchup seasonality.